Our first EatWith experience

Our belated anniversary trip to Barcelona was booked thanks to winning a competition through GoWithOh over summer. Part of our prize was a voucher to use on an EatWith experience whilst we were in the city.

I had never heard of EatWith before, I didn’t even think much of it until the voucher details were emailed through and I started to browse the website.

What a genius concept. I loved it. I loved it straight away and we hadn’t even experienced it yet.

EatWith brings creative chefs, caterers and food lovers together, provides a platform for these visionaries to host dinners or other culinary events to their homes and invite everyday joe blogs’ like you and I to take part and enjoy. They currently boast chefs in over 150 cities all over the world, Barcelona had a great variety on offer over the length of our stay.

First crisis, who do we choose!?!? Man, we pondered over this for days, I even considered booking more than one. We decided to narrow our choices down to the one option that would have catered perfectly to our dietary requirements. A lot of the events already had set menus (which sounded amazing) but we went with Alberto and Ella as they were the only ones who advertised being able to alter the menu if needed. Also the allure of an ‘Epic Mediterranean Feast’ cooked with locally sourced, organic and seasonal ingredients was exactly the kind of meal we were after.

After confirming the booking online, I was given the opportunity to message Alberto and Ella, which I did and explained that Mo and I were Muslim and only ate halal meat and we didn’t drink alcohol. They were quick to reply back and advise that this was fine and ask if we would be happy with vege/pesce dishes (which we were of course).

On the night of our dinner, we were lucky to be staying fairly close by to where our hosts lived, no more than ten minutes on foot. It also meant we discovered a new vibrant area in the city bustling with people, lots of restaurants and family friendly late night stops.

There were twelve of us signed up for the night’s dinner, most of us punctual as we arrived en masse at the door, bang on half eight. Alberto and Ellas flat was cute and welcoming, the table was pre-set ready for dinner, it looked beautiful and Mo and I went straight into socialising mode, introducing ourselves to the other diners.

It wasn’t long before Alberto came round with aperitivo cocktails (virgin versions for us non drinkers) and explained that dinner would be served shortly.

I’m not going to bore you with details of the whole meal but I will point out some of my favourite aspects.

First of all, the food itself was divine. Presentation, timing, quality and originality of each dish was restaurant standard and we were treated to four fall-inspired courses. Really special!

Second, Alberto and Ella were fantastic hosts. They spent most of the evening concentrating on our meal but made time to sit and relax with us all at the end, as we all got to know each other a little better. They are somewhat EatWith celebrities, as it was actually at an EatWith singles night that they both met and are now on course to be wed (very cute story).

Finally, we were lucky to have such a great group of people for our dinner. We didn’t get to talk to everyone in the group (there just wasn’t enough hours in the evening) but the ladies we did get to know were a fabulous bunch and were it not for the fact that we were mixing with people from all over the world, we could’ve easily been at a dinner party with good friends back home.

All in all it was a lovely evening and such a refreshing way to enjoy dinner whilst on holiday.

A special night with some very special people 🙂

At the end of the evening Ella informed us that EatWith was initially set up in Tel Aviv, a fact I never came across on reading about them. Mo and I are supporters of the Palestinian BDS campaign and would not normally have chosen to support an Israeli company. However, we had a wonderful evening with our hosts and the other guests and this is why I felt I the need to blog about it. Of course until we know the facts, Mo and I will not be booking any further meals through the website – this is our personal choice.